Memphis partners with NextDoor to fight crime

Memphis Police Department is going social through a partnership with NextDoor.com.

NextDoor is a social media site where neighbors post things that happen around their neighborhood. Currently, 70 percent of Memphis neighborhoods are on NextDoor.

Many neighbors use the site to report crimes or suspicious things happening near their homes.

"This is an incredibly cost efficient method to quickly and effectively communicate with neighbors," Mayor Jim Strickland said of NextDoor.

Strickland and Memphis Police Department leadership announced Thursday that their departments would start utilizing NextDoor.

Some other cities have adopted NextDoor and been able to lower the crime rate.

"If I stood before you today and told you police can solve all crimes, I would be lying to you," Memphis Police Department Interim Director Michael Rallings said.

The adoption of NextDoor will allow every single Memphian to step up and help police. The hope is that residents will use the app to report what they see, which will help the city follow up and make arrests.

Critics said NextDoor isn't going to help poorer Memphis neighborhoods.

"Any kind of program you bring up is going to help," Charles Todd said. He said people without smartphones or internet access cannot participate with NextDoor. "Some of those people are not going to report the crime that they know, and some older people are afraid."

Interim Director Rallings said the adoption of NextDoor will not take the place of people calling 911 or other non-emergency numbers. He said it's just another way people can communicate and keep each other aware of what's going on around them.

Recently, NextDoor came under fire for users racially profiling people in their neighborhoods, but a NextDoor representative said the site has since changed how people post and report. NextDoor hopes those changes will eliminate racial profiling on the site.

It sounds just like the plot line of a television show- a woman naked and afraid, lost in remote woods. But Lisa Theris’ journey back to civilization was real life and a real struggle that lasted a month in Bullock County.

It sounds just like the plot line of a television show- a woman naked and afraid, lost in remote woods. But Lisa Theris’ journey back to civilization was real life and a real struggle that lasted a month in Bullock County.